


More Human Than Human

by thedevilchicken



Category: Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:38:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: "IsCallreally your name?" Ripley asks.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ijemanja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijemanja/gifts).



"Is _Call_ really your name?" Ripley asks. 

"I don't think this is really the time," Call replies, and as they're running for their lives at the time, she really thinks she has a point. 

"This might be the _only_ time," Ripley says, with a sideways glance as they sprint down the gangway, and the problem then is Call has to admit she has a point, too. There's always, _always_ , a chance they might not survive. Maybe today's the day they don't.

The door locks are shot (because when exactly aren't they), but at the end of the corridor, at the control panel waiting there behind a grille behind the bulkhead, Ripley yanks off the cover and Call grimaces and rolls up her sleeve. She patches into the systems directly with an interface cable shoved so far into her arm she thinks she'll feel it even when she's pulled it back out again because the feeling always lingers for days after the fact, like she's disembodied, like she's all that's left in the universe of the ship or the base or the what-the-fuck-ever that they've just destroyed. It takes time to remind herself that maybe she's a machine, but she's not machinery.

When she hits the right spot, mentally speaking, the doors come down in sequence. Metal slams against metal away into the distance but Call can feel them all inside her head and hell, she knows Ripley can probably hear them. Ripley can probably hear _them_ , too. They're not completely alone, which is kind of the point. It's the reason they're even there at all.

The radio at Ripley's hip crackles too loudly and as Ripley winces, Johner says, "Twelve minutes, ladies. We're on our way, don't get your panties in a twist." Call hears his voice from the radio just as clearly as the base's digital status readings that tickle at what she's got in her head that passes for a brain. She doesn't like Johner, exactly, but he's an okay pilot and more than that, more importantly, he's what they've got. Who knew the creepy jackass would turn out to be reliable in a pinch, but it turns out he's just pissed enough at the aliens to tag along and help out with this weird-ass mission that Ripley and Call have found themselves on, more by accident than as a plan. That and he seems to think if he sticks around long enough he'll get called in for a threesome. He's nothing if not optimistic.

"So, is _Call_ really your name?" Ripley asks again, leaning back against the dark, gnarled metal of the bulkhead with one hand behind her head and one on the sidearm strapped to her thigh. She looks almost nonchalant in spite of everything, smiling a faint little smile. She refuses point-blank to be scared of them, which Call guesses probably helps.

Call sighs, and with the jack still shoved into her arm the sound pours out of all of the base's internal comms, not that there are people left there to hear it - usually there are a few when they get there, whether they survive escape or not, but this time all they found were aliens. Ripley takes Call's arm in one hand and her skin's so hot it might've made Call flinch if she weren't already used to it, because she's had time now, not that it'll ever be enough. Then Ripley's thumb rubs the place that the jack pushes into Call's arm, making the signal she's receiving shiver brightly with feedback, and Call has to wonder why that always feels so good it makes her eyes close and her lips part and her synthetic skin flush the way it does. She wonders what possible purpose it could serve, if it was programmed or if it's somehow a quirk that's all her own that Weyland-Yutani, bless their rotten hearts, would call a bug and try to finesse out of her. She tells herself she hates it. Ripley finds it kind of hilarious. 

Twelve minutes is not a long time and they ought to be on tenterhooks, wondering whether they'll make it out alive or not, but after this long - it's been what, four years? - the anticipation's somehow just not the same. They've blown so many bases, so many ships, destroyed so many labs and so many samples and killed so many aliens on so many planets that somehow the thrill of it's worn off. Ripley bends her head and lifts Call's hand and brings the tip of her tongue to the jack in Call's forearm and Jesus, God, _that_ thrill sure hasn't worn off. Call kind of doubts it ever will.

Ripley's saliva is not-so-faintly acidic, nowhere near as much as her blood but it's still kind of crazy on the PH scale, and it makes the information flooding into Call through the jack just kind of...tingle. Ripley's nails and fingers have been on Call's skin before, a whole bunch of times, Ripley's mouth on hers, Ripley's tongue between her thighs, Ripley's hands inside her abdomen (okay, admittedly that was through a gunshot wound), but none of it's really felt as intimate as this always does, as when Ripley's mouth's at her arm and the jack starts to corrode just enough to interrupt the data stream and Call feels light-headed, rests her head back against the bulkhead with her eyes drifting closed, and her synthesised breath comes in little breathy gasps that echo all the way through the base. Thankfully, there's no one there to hear but Ripley and the aliens that want them dead.

Ripley unbuckles Call's belt and shoves one hand inside and maybe Call isn't human but she was made to feel like one, and _feel_ like one, she's so turned on she can't stop herself, can't keep herself quiet as Ripley's fingers tease down between her thighs then curve then push inside, her thumb rubbing tight circles on and around her clit just the way they both know she likes because they've had time to experiment. When she comes, gasping harder, her hand grasping Ripley's, practically riding Ripley's fingers, if anyone had lived they'd have heard her. When she opens her eyes, Ripley's smiling her usual dark smile. Twelve minutes is not a long time, but it's more than enough. 

"Is _Call_ really your name?" Ripley asks again later, back on the _Betty_ , once they've washed off the grime of another mission, another base, another place in a long list of places Call once stole and that lives in her head that they're working their way down to the end of. They're naked from the shower and stretched out on their bunk (lying down, the fact Ripley towers over her so wholly matters a whole lot less) and Ripley has one hand over the less than stellar patch job they did of gaping hole in Call's abdomen. Call thinks she looks even less human now, with that patch of synthetic skin that doesn't quite match and won't quite blend, but Ripley seems to like it. 

"They called me Annalee after somebody's niece," Call says, as she's tucking Ripley's long hair back behind her ear. Call could grow her hair if she wanted to but she'd have to _want_ to, she'd have to make the conscious decision to, just another thing that sets her apart. "It's somebody else's name." 

For a moment, Ripley seems to consider this, maybe seems to agree, but what she says is, "Then it's yours, too. I mean, they gave it to you, right?"

"I guess," Call replies. And in a way, she guesses it's true.

Ripley doesn't sleep much at night and Call doesn't sleep at all unless she makes herself do it. When Ripley shifts down the bed and parts Call's thighs, when the tip of Ripley's tongue traces the place where Call's lips meet, when Ripley's fingers spread her open and she licks and she sucks and she makes Call moan out loud just for her and not through a whole bases's comms, Call knows it couldn't work with anyone but her. Call's skin won't burn the way a human's would, for starters. And when Call pushes Ripley down, when she pins her down, when she squeezes her wrists above her head and grins, there's no need for either of them to be careful. When she traces Ripley's tattoo with her thumb just a little too hard, Call knows she won't bruise. It just turns them both on again. They don't need much encouragement.

The tattoo on Ripley's arm doesn't mean much to anyone else that sees it, not even Johner, not even Vriess, but to Call it's a reminder that she's not human, either. 

And sometimes, just sometimes, she thinks perhaps humanity is overrated.


End file.
